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HERACLITUS’ CHILDREN:
BODIES, BRAINS AND CULTURE AT PLAY
by
Richard Miles Ellis
A Dissertation Presented to the
FACULTY OF THE USC GRADUATE SCHOOL
UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA
In Partial Fulfillment of the
Requirements for the Degree
DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY
(CLASSICS)
December 2011
Copyright 2011 Richard Miles Ellis

This project analyzes the function of children in the philosophical remains of the late 6th century BCE philosopher Heraclitus of Ephesus. I suggest that through their disruptive play we can discern a theory of the emergence of mind and the functioning of culture that destabilizes subsequent accounts of epistemology and social organization in Plato and Aristotle. I paint Heraclitus as a materialist thinker who interrogates the nature of time and the role of the body in the activity of thought. Similarly I argue that his valorization of the fragmented and the concealed models a form of historical practice that unsettles the linear and progressive emphases of traditional accounts of the development of Greek wisdom.

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HERACLITUS’ CHILDREN:
BODIES, BRAINS AND CULTURE AT PLAY
by
Richard Miles Ellis
A Dissertation Presented to the
FACULTY OF THE USC GRADUATE SCHOOL
UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA
In Partial Fulfillment of the
Requirements for the Degree
DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY
(CLASSICS)
December 2011
Copyright 2011 Richard Miles Ellis